Never won an Oscar
It still amazes me the late great Sir Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar for best director, and for much of it I blame the supremely talented Billy Wilder!!!
Hitchcock was nominated for only five of his films, them being: Rebecca (1940), Lifeboat (1944), Spellbound (1945), Rear Window (1954) and Psycho (1960).
For Rebecca he lost out to John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath, which is understandable. With Lifeboat he lost out to Leo McCarey’s forgettable Bing Crosby film Going My Way, Billy Wilder for Double Indemnity was also nominated that year.
Billy Wilder triumphed over Hitchcock the following year with a satire, The Lost Weekend beating Spellbound for best director.
Hitchcock had to wait nine years until he was nominated again, this time for Rear Window, which lost to On the Waterfront directed by Elia Kazan, who was a worthy winner.
And again in 1960 Hitchcock’s Psycho lost to Billy Wilder’s comedy The Apartment.
Two of Wilder’s films beat Hitchcock for best director, and the kick in the teeth is that they aren’t his best or most remembered films, in total Wilder won six Oscars, the others being for screenplay. Hitchcock won none.
I’m not bashing Wilder at all, as he directed some true classics such as, Some Like It Hot, Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard, not to mention his many writing credits.
And of the meagre amount of films Hitchcock was nominated for, Lifeboat really should of won. But what about his other classics such as North by Northwest, Vertigo, Marnie, The Birds, and To Catch a Thief, to name but a few - not one of them nominated for best director.
When it came to the Oscars, Alfred Hitchcock really was the Wrong Man! 🤨